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This study seeks to help facilitate successful future international ventures in space. It is based primarily on the joint committee's evaluation of the cooperation and collaboration in space that has existed between the United States and Europe. The joint committee has tried to extract the crucial items that either facilitated or hampered each cooperative project. Among the joint ventures that have been selected for this study, some have been considered successes, others failures, or even a success by one partner and a failure by the other.
Because the disciplinary base may highlight different components of the issue of international cooperation, this chapter accounts for the particulars of each discipline—Earth science, space science with its subdisciplines (astrophysics, space physics, and planetary science), and microgravity research and life sciences—by examining a few selected missions from each area. Selection of these case studies was made so that a cross section of the approaches and experiences (both positive and negative) in the respective disciplines could be achieved. The rationale for this choice within each discipline is presented below (Table 3.1). Given the large variety of missions and types of cooperation, selection was also made to cover the greatest number of situations, as shown in Table 3.2.
In this chapter, the missions selected as case studies in each discipline are characterized briefly with emphasis on specific problems that arose from their international makeup. The findings by discipline follow the case studies; Chapter 4 presents the integrated findings and conclusions of the joint committee.
The following are among the questions that guide these considerations:
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Case Studies of U.S.-European Missions
This study seeks to help facilitate successful future international ventures in space. It is based primarily on the joint committee's evaluation of the cooperation and collaboration in space that has existed between the United States and Europe. The joint committee has tried to extract the crucial items that either facilitated or hampered each cooperative project. Among the joint ventures that have been selected for this study, some have been considered successes, others failures, or even a success by one partner and a failure by the other.
Because the disciplinary base may highlight different components of the issue of international cooperation, this chapter accounts for the particulars of each discipline—Earth science, space science with its subdisciplines (astrophysics, space physics, and planetary science), and microgravity research and life sciences—by examining a few selected missions from each area. Selection of these case studies was made so that a cross section of the approaches and experiences (both positive and negative) in the respective disciplines could be achieved. The rationale for this choice within each discipline is presented below (Table 3.1). Given the large variety of missions and types of cooperation, selection was also made to cover the greatest number of situations, as shown in Table 3.2.
In this chapter, the missions selected as case studies in each discipline are characterized briefly with emphasis on specific problems that arose from their international makeup. The findings by discipline follow the case studies; Chapter 4 presents the integrated findings and conclusions of the joint committee.
The following are among the questions that guide these considerations:
What were the scope and nature of the agreement? How did the agreement evolve, and how was it finalized? How long did it take to plan the mission?
How was the cooperation initiated (e.g., by scientist-to-scientist or agency-to-agency contact)? What was the role of each partner and agency? Were the motivations the same for all partners?
What were the expected benefits each partner offered?
What were the extent and practical mechanisms of cooperation? At what level, if any, did hardware integration of multinational components take place? How were communications maintained? Was the project structured to minimize friction between international partners?
What was the net impact of internationalization of the mission in terms of costs, schedule, and science output?
What external influences affected the mission during its life cycle? What were their effects? Were problems caused by different internal priorities or by external (e.g., political, financial) boundary conditions (such as budget cycles)?
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TABLE 3.1 Missions Used as Case Studies in This Report, Selected by Discipline
NASA-European National Space Agencies
HST, SOHO,a INTEGRAL
Planetary sciences
Cassini-Huygens, GMM
Space physics
ISPM [Ulysses], ISEE
Earth sciences
EOS—Polar platforms
Microgravity research and life sciences
TABLE 3.2 Missions Used as Case Studies in This Report, Selected by Type
Mission Type
NASA-European National Space Agencies
Observatory type, large facility shared
Programs with several satellites or missions
GMM, ISPM [Ulysses], ISEE
Missions with few instruments
Missions with large number of instruments
SOHO, INTEGRAL, Cassini-Huygens, EOS—Polar platforms
Initiated by principal investigator
NOTE to Tables 3.1 and 3.2: AMPTE = Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorer; EOS = Earth Observing System; ESA = European Space Agency; GMM = Generic Mars Mission; HST = Hubble Space Telescope; IML = International Microgravity Laboratory; INTEGRAL = International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory; ISEE = International Sun-Earth Explorer; ISPM = International Solar Polar Mission [renamed Ulysses]; NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration; ROSAT = Roentgen Satellite; SOHO = Solar and Heliospheric Observatory; TOPEX = (Ocean) Topography Experiment; UARS = Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite.
a SOHO is used by both astrophysicists and space physicists. Its mission addresses both disciplines. For the purposes of this study, SOHO was analyzed as an astrophysics mission.
Were there issues of competition versus cooperation? Did the desire to protect technological leadership create problems?
What benefits did the cooperation actually produce?
Which agreements succeeded and which did not, in both scientific and programmatic terms?
The questions are not formally asked and answered for each mission case study but serve instead as guideposts. In the end, the joint committee sought to know and present the lessons learned and how they can be applied in the future.
The four missions selected—the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT), the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL)—span a wide range of involvement by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and by space agencies in Europe. They also involve a variety of subdisciplines, mission sizes, and degrees of complexity.
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HST. This major mission for astronomy, with a European Space Agency (ESA) share of 15 percent, has had very high-visibility for both the astronomy and astrophysics community and the public at large. Particularly since it was repaired, the scientific productivity and impact of the Hubble have been enormous. As an example of international cooperation on such a high-visibility mission, HST has been quite successful. It may have suffered (in the United States at least) from not having been widely recognized as involving significant contributions and participation from outside NASA.
ROSAT. This is an example of a mission based on a national program (Germany), rather than ESA, and that has produced a highly successful cooperation among Germany, NASA, and the United Kingdom (UK). The mission was greatly enhanced by the international cooperative effort, which provided both key instruments (the High-Resolution Imager [HRI] and Wide Field [WF] Camera) and mission launch. This is a principal investigator (PI) based mission that illustrates agency-national and interpersonal collaboration.
SOHO. The SOHO mission is currently providing the most powerful and complete view of the Sun ever obtained. It epitomizes international planning and execution, with more than a dozen separate instruments provided by laboratories across Europe and the United States. SOHO demonstrates that even the wide-ranging breadth of instrumentation desirable for a modern mission with a wide variety of capabilities can be executed by international agreements and planning. As a ''cornerstone" mission of Horizon 2000, SOHO also represents a case of long-term planning and cooperation.
INTEGRAL. As the next major gamma-ray astronomy mission planned for a 2001 launch, INTEGRAL represents a contrast in its international planning from the first three (operating) missions. The long planning process led by ESA was disrupted by significant reduction in NASA's contribution from, originally, the major share of one of the two primary instruments—the spectrometer—to only a token involvement. This can be partly traced to a lack of strong, broad community support in the United States, concerns about the priority of the proposed U.S. instrument, and the rapidly changing outlook for funding within NASA.
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope has had the greatest impact of any observatory type facility available in space. The two main reasons for placing a large optical telescope in orbit are to escape the degradation of images caused by atmospheric turbulence and to allow high-resolution imaging and spectral analysis in the ultraviolet (UV) range. Moreover, achieving significant gains over ground-based instruments requires a large collecting power and high-precision optics. These demands create a heavy, complex, and expensive satellite. HST's history is consequently long, complex, and expensive.
The HST is the result of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA has led this effort and provided the spacecraft, the telescope, and four of the five original instruments as well as the ground segment and launch. ESA contributed one instrument, the solar panels and their mechanisms, and support for some scientific and technical staff at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which operates the HST from its facilities on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. This is described in further detail below.
HST consists basically of a reflecting 2.4-m telescope that collects and focuses light on one or more scientific instruments. The current instrument package includes two direct-imaging cameras—the Wide Field and Planetary Camera Second Generation (WFPC2)1 and the Faint Object Camera (FOC)—and the Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS).2 The optics reflect
The original WFPC was replaced in the 1993 servicing mission by WFPC2, which is similar but includes a revised set of filters that have been improved for the far UV, a new type of charge-coupled device, and corrective optics for the spherical aberration in the primary mirror.
NICMOS permits imaging in the wavelength range between 1000 and 2500 nm and spectroscopy between 1000 and 3000 nm using three grating spectrnmeters. Three cameras simultaneously observe different portions of the field of view. The detectors and part of the optics are cooled to 60 K by solid nitrogen, with an anticipated lifetime of 2 years. On the other hand, STIS is able to replace the performance nf GHRS and FOS by using a 2,000 × 2,000 pixel multimode microchannel array detector providing 8,000 times the elements or its predecessors.
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light adequately with wavelengths between about 115 and 3000 nm, from the UV to the near-infrared (NI). Pointing stability is met by using three interferometric Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS) on the field of view's periphery, which are also operated as an additional scientific instrument.
The original instrument package included the WFPC, the FOC, the Faint Object Spectrometer (FOS), and the Goddard High-Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS). As a result of discovering a manufacturing flaw in the primary mirror on the observatory, NASA conducted a servicing mission in December 1993 and installed the corrective optics package, Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR). After COSTAR was installed, the blurred vision of the original HST was restored; this repair required removing the original high-speed photometer. In addition, the STIS (which replaced the FOS and the GHRS) was also installed and the WFPC was upgraded. The NICMOS was added during a second servicing mission in 1997.
Historical Background
The potential advantages of carrying out astronomical observations from space, beyond Earth's atmosphere, were first pointed out by the German rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth in 1923.3 The original idea for HST evolved from the pivotal paper by Lyman Spitzer in 19464 in which he discussed the need for and many advantages of a large space telescope for optical and UV observations of the universe. The primary goals of such a mission were to achieve near-diffraction-limited imaging and spectroscopy in the UV optical (120-700 nm) range with a telescope aperture large enough to allow observation of faint objects.
More than a decade later, between 1962 and 1965, NASA sponsored several studies of a large orbiting telescope.5 The concept began to take a specific form and dimension, and during the early 1970s, studies of a NASA mission concept for a 3-m Large Space Telescope (LST) were carried out.6 These led to definitive studies between 1973 and 1976 establishing parameters for the basic mission. The LST study concept included four scientific instruments (camera, spectrograph, photometer, and astrometric camera) for spectrographic and photometric observations between 120 nm in the UV and 1,000 nm in the IR. The outline of the mission scenario anticipated a 1982 launch date.
The U.S. astronomy community rallied behind the space telescope as the highest priority objective of the decadal study for astronomy for the 1970s, the Greenstein Report published by the National Academy of Sciences in 1972,7 and reaffirmed its priority in the next decadal review, the Field Report, in 1982.8 The actual selling of the project to a reluctant U.S. Congress (because of the cost) was accomplished due to the expressed consensus of this community and the pivotal leadership of a number of leading astronomers.
From the start, European astronomers were willing to join their American colleagues in this important effort. The issue of cooperation was first formally raised in 1973 when ESA's Astronomy Working Group (AWG) recommended that Europe consider and explore the possibility of participation in LST. ESA conducted long negotiations with NASA for this purpose. The selection was narrowed down to the FOC through a series of
Jakobsen, P., and Laurance, R.J., Oberth Paper, ESA Bulletin 58:91, 1989.
Spitzer, L., Astronomical Advantages of Extraterrestrial Observatory (Project RAND Report), Douglas Aircraft Co., 1946.
National Academy of Sciences, A Review of Space Research (Publ. No. 1079), NAS, Washington, D.C., 1962.
In May 1975, NASA decided, for cost reasons, to reduce the size of the telescope primary mirror from 3 to 2.4 m, and the term "large" was dropped from the mission's title. The name Hubble was added by NASA in 1983, in honor of the American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble.
Astronomy Survey Committee, National Research Council, Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1970s, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1972.
Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee, National Research Council, Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1980s, Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 1982.
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discussions within the AWG and with NASA.9 The decision was prompted, in part, by the FOC requirement of a detector imaging system that could work in a so-called photon-counting mode to exploit the space telescope's potential to the fullest. At the time, Europe had a lead in this area, since University College London had developed the only photon-counting imaging system then in routine use for optical astronomy.
In June 1975, a NASA-ESA working group was charged with establishing common ground regarding the basis of eventual cooperation on the LST. This working group proposed that along with the FOC, a continuing European contribution to the telescope's operation and the provision of a major subsystem would be appropriate. This would allow ESA to secure a significant share of the observing time for European astronomers during the then planned 10 years of operations. It was proposed that ESA help to staff the Science Operations Facility, later renamed the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Later, ESA was to set up its own Space Telescope-European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF) at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) site in Garching, Germany. The major spacecraft subsystem to be provided by ESA was the solar arrays.
For ESA, the project's feasibility study, or Phase A, was completed, and subsequent discussions led ESA's Science Programme Committee (SPC) to accept a proposal presented in October 1976, subject to satisfactory negotiation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the United States. The HST project thus evolved into a joint NASA-ESA mission. The U.S. Congress approved a "new start" for the project in the summer of 1977, and a formal MOU between NASA and ESA was signed on October 7, 1977. No less than 15 percent of the observing time available would be guaranteed to European astronomers in exchange for the solar panels; one of the main scientific instruments, the FOC; and 15 positions at the STScI.
The cooperation was formalized to include active ESA participation in mission planning and data analysis. At the time of the establishment of STScI at Johns Hopkins University and the appointment of its first director in July 1981, the links were well established. ESA personnel were already on-site at STScI, with ESA involvement ensured by representation on the Space Telescope Institute Council (STIC). Indeed, the previous chair of the STIC was from an ESA member state.
The original launch date of late 1983 was postponed several times until late 1986 because of funding and technical delays. Furthermore, the Space Shuttle Challenger accident in January 1986 caused an additional delay of more than 3 years.
HST was finally launched by the Shuttle mission STS-31 from Kennedy Space Center in April 1990. During the commissioning period, a flaw was noted in the manufacturing of the primary mirror. Despite this setback, a large number of astounding phenomena and objects were discovered using HST, even though its mirror was flawed. As is now well known, HST recovered its full imaging and spectroscopic capability as a result of a highly successful repair mission in December 1993. During this first servicing mission, the solar arrays were replaced with new ESA-provided systems; the original WFPC was replaced by a new, more effective WFPC2 (including its own corrective optics); and COSTAR was introduced as a focal plane "instrument" (instead of the original high-speed photometer) to correct the optical beam incident on FOS, GHRS, and FOC. ESA actively participated in the definition and testing of COSTAR. Since the servicing mission, HST has been regarded as an overwhelming success by both the public and the scientific user community and must be acknowledged as a superb example of inter-agency cooperation and planning.
From the beginning it was NASA's intent to open its Announcement of Opportunity (AO) to the entire scientific community. The MOU guaranteed 15 percent for Europeans, and this was considered a built-in check of juste retour (fair return). In reality, European astronomers currently obtain approximately 20 percent of the available observing time after selection through the peer review system. Observations selected in the seventh
The FOC instrument is sensitive in the wavelength range from 115 to 650 nm and is capable of operating in two basic modes: direct imaging with different magnifications, and the so-called long-slit spectrographic mode. Whereas the WFPC provides a slightly undersampled image of a wide region of the sky, the FOC is designed to fully exploit the unique imaging capability of the HST and provide images of the highest possible resolution and limiting sensitivity, although the fields or view or the three nominal imaging modes are very small. Moreover, the WFPC operates best at longer wavelengths, while the FOC is most sensitive in the blue and UV regions. It will be replaced in the third servicing mission (1999) by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) being developed by Johns Hopkins University with NASA funds.
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observing program (cycle 7) are being performed following the second maintenance and refurbishment mission (STS-82) in February 1997.10
Additional servicing missions to HST are planned for 1999 and 2002, and a series of studies are being carried out for the continuation of the mission beyond 2005, the nominal termination of the HST 15-year lifetime. The ESA-funded FOC will be replaced during the 1999 mission by the NASA-approved Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Solar arrays will again be replaced, and HST will be reboosted to a higher orbit to compensate for the orbital decay expected during the next solar maximum cycle.
The planned replacement of solar arrays by NASA (rather than, as originally supplied, by ESA) in the 1999 servicing mission has raised some concerns about ESA's role or hardware share in the extended HST mission. ESA's SPC approved procurement of the Solar Array Drive Mechanism (SADM) for the 1999 servicing mission. Given that the FOC will also be removed from the space telescope, the European contribution to the mission will be significantly reduced. In 1995, a joint ESA-NASA working group was set up to identify a potential HST instrument for the 2002 servicing mission, which could be provided by ESA to NASA. Two potential instruments—three-dimensional imaging spectrographs—to be provided entirely by ESA, were identified at an early stage. However, this approach for a complete ESA instrument was abandoned following budget reductions in the aftermath of the ESA Ministerial Conference in October 1995 at Toulouse. In October 1996, NASA released an AO for the provision of advanced instruments to be installed at the time of the 2002 (probably final) servicing mission; a NASA instrument (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) was selected. Despite funding problems to accommodate further contributions to the cooperative program, ESA was able to respond to the AO through a collaboration between U.S. and European institutes with a 50-50 participation in proposing the HSTJ instrument, which incorporates Superconducting Tunnel Junction (STJ) detectors.
In the meantime, both ESA and NASA have begun to consider extending the current MOU beyond 2001, the present date of expiration. HST operations are funded on the NASA side to 2005, and mission extension beyond this date is possible, although not yet decided. In this case, a final servicing mission might take place in 2005. ESA also plans to contribute to NASA efforts to develop a Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). On June 27, 1996, the NASA associate administrator for space science met with the ESA science program director and invited ESA to participate in the study of the "origins" program, which includes, among several missions, the NGST and an infrared interferometer. Formal working-level contacts are now being established, and a task force on NGST has been formed within ESA.
Finally, it is useful to consider the scope of HST. The cost to ESA is accounted as 462 million accounting units (MAU) in 1994 European Community Units (ecus), the equivalent of $547.4 million in 1994 U.S. dollars. The total mission cost to NASA (in real dollars) from inception is $4 billion or more, certainly the most expensive astronomical mission ever carried out and among the most expensive single scientific facilities yet constructed.11
The cooperation on HST between U.S. and European astronomers has worked very well. The fact that NASA had a leading position in the mission was never disputed; however, some European scientists have complained that NASA did not present the mission as truly cooperative and international in its public outreach on both the mission and its results. In addition, it was clearly important to have a well-defined MOU established at early stages. Drafting these kinds of MOUs was found, nevertheless, to be a lengthy process that does not include mechanisms for easily modifying or extending the mission. Europe's significant contribution to the scientific payload also proved crucial, not only to the spacecraft but also to HST operations at the STScI. This cooperation at STScI in the
Cycle 7 is the seventh selection of the observing program, solicited by competitive peer review (approximately 7:1 oversubscribed) on an approximately annual schedule.
Bahcall, J.N., and Odell, C.R., "Scientific Research with the Space Telescope," SEE N80-22130 12-88, 1979, p. 5; Laurence, R.J., "The History of the Hubble Space Telescope and ESA's Involvement," ESA Bulletin 61:9-12, 1990; Smith, R.W., The Space Telescope: A Study of NASA, Science, Technology, and Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1989; Wilson, A., ed., Interavia Space Directory, International Space Programmes, 1994, p. 163.
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United States and the links to ST-ECF in Germany have ensured that HST has been conducted highly visibly and successfully on both sides of the Atlantic.
Roentgen Satellite
The Roentgen Satellite is an x-ray telescope mission to provide the first soft x-ray (0.2-2.5 keV) (1 keV = 103 electron volts) all-sky imaging survey, as well as an observatory for detailed study of individual sources. ROSAT mission goals were twofold: (1) Using the scan mode, a complete all-sky survey was to be carried out over 6 months with imaging telescopes to detect sources at x-ray and extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) energies, to measure their positions with an accuracy of less than 0.5 arc minute, and to obtain fluxes and broadband spectra. (2) In the pointing mode, the goal was to study selected sources in detail with respect to spatial extent, temporal variability, and spectral properties. Pointed observations with the High-Resolution Imager (HRI) also were to allow more precise (~5- to 10-inch) positions and structures to be measured. ROSAT was launched in June 1990 and provided a higher-sensitivity and higher-resolution follow-up to the Einstein X-Ray Observatory operated by NASA from 1978 to 1981 (with European participation in its grating spectrometer). It will have provided the highest spatial resolution x-ray imaging capability to date until the planned launch of the Advanced X-Ray Astronomy Facility (AXAF) in late 1998. ROSAT is a German-U.S.-UK project.12
Historical Background
ROSAT resulted from a proposal made by the Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) to the Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie (BMFT) in 1975. This was one of three projects selected from 20 proposals for "big projects" across a wide range of natural sciences. The original version of the project entailed an all-sky x-ray survey to be carried out with a moderate angular resolution (roughly 1-inch) imaging telescope. Between 1977 and 1982, extensive studies were conducted by German space companies in the pre-Phase A and Phase A stages. Following the regulations of the ESA convention, BMFT offered cooperation on ROSAT to ESA member states in 1979. This resulted in three proposals, one of which was successful.
The University of Leicester (UK) led a proposal for a Wide Field XUV Camera (WFC) to be flown together with the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) to extend the spectral band pass to lower energies. A formal proposal for UK funding was made by the WFC Consortium to the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC)13 in August 1981. After discussions between the University of Leicester and MPE and negotiations between BMFT and SERC, the MOU between these two parties was signed in 1983.
U.S. involvement in ROSAT was first discussed at the Uhuru Memorial Symposium in December 1980 when a German scientist talked about ROSAT plans and outlined the possibilities of international cooperation. Individuals at the Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) and an x-ray astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) became interested, and further discussions among scientists at GSFC, SAO, and MPE, and between BMFT and NASA, led to a MOU signed in 1982. NASA agreed to provide the HRI for the focal plane of the XRT, as well as the ROSAT launch with the Space Shuttle in 1987. The HRI was developed at SAO as an improved version of the detector, which had been originally developed for the Einstein Observatory.
The Challenger accident of January 1986 brought about a significant change in the ROSAT project. In December 1987 it was decided that ROSAT would be launched on an expendable launch vehicle (Delta II) in 1990 instead of on the Space Shuttle. This required late changes to the satellite hardware, which fortunately were
As an international project, ROSAT was conceived and executed on a nonexchange of funds basis. Because offers from UK industry did not fully comply with requirements set by the management of Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt-Projektträger (DLR-PT), a transfer of funds took place from the United Kingdom to Germany.
In April 1994, U.K. research councils were reorganized and SERC's responsibilities were shared between the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC).
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modest despite the advanced stage of the project. On NASA's side, the launch required a modified shroud of the Delta II to accommodate ROSAT. The launch finally took place on June 1, 1990, from Cape Canaveral.
The heart of the cooperative effort was science, instruments, and data. The instrument contributions by SAO, UL and British institutes, and MPE were conducted separately. The institutes and agencies (particularly MPE, DLR-PT, and DARA) provided program management and scientific oversight, with science planning led by MPE. Many partners and entities shared responsibilities for scientific analysis software for guest observers and guest observer support and for preparation of the Announcement of Opportunity. Moreover, the data management, sharing, and analysis were developed and conducted in a distributed fashion involving most of the partners.
Instruments and Associated Data Systems. The ROSAT payload consists of two telescopes: the XRT with the position-sensitive proportional counter (PSPC), and the HRI, which was mounted on a carousel in the focal plane behind the XRT mirror assembly14 and the WFC.
Overall direction of the science project was carried out as a PI mission at MPE, whereas the ROSAT project as a whole was managed by DLR-PT until 1990 and by Deutsche Agentur fär Raumfahrt Angelegenheiten (DARA) thereafter. The main satellite contractor in Germany was Dornier System, with Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm as a subcontractor. The Carl Zeiss Company developed and built the x-ray mirror system.
The U.S. contributions to ROSAT were the HRI, mission launch on a Delta II, and significant analysis software. For the pointing phase of the mission, NASA has conducted the observing proposal solicitation for input to the International ROSAT Users Committee (IUC). U.S. participation in ROSAT was managed at GSFC, which supported scientific planning as well as data reduction and distribution to the U.S. astrophysics community. GSFC also developed and maintains the ROSAT data archive for NASA and coordinates solicitation and review of observing proposals submitted by the U.S. community. The ROSAT Science Data Center (RSDC) is operated at SAO, where the HRI detector, telescope aspect software, and HRI data analysis software were developed. SAO also monitors the condition as well as the calibration of the HRI in flight.
The WFC was designed and built by a consortium of British institutes led by the University of Leicester.15 The ROSAT UK Data Centre (UKDC) is located at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire, whereas the ROSAT UK Guest Observer Centre (UKGOC) is located at the University of Leicester. Between them, the UKDC and UKGOC act as a link between U.K. observers and MPE's ROSAT Data Centre. The UKDC processes all WFC data and distributes pointed x-ray data (received from MPE) and WFC data to U.K. guest observers. It also sends all German WFC GO data to the German XUV Data Centre (at the University of Tübingen). The UKGOC provides general user support for ROSAT to U.K. guest observers (GOs). Analysis of the WFC all-sky survey has been the responsibility of the ROSAT UK Survey Centre at Leicester. The all-sky survey database has since been archived at the Leicester Database and Archive Service.
ROSAT was launched on June 1, 1990. After the initial calibration period, ROSAT performed an all-sky survey in a continuous 6-month period using the PSPC in the focus of the x-ray telescope and in two XUV wave bands with the WFC. Following the all-sky survey, ROSAT has been used for pointed observations using the PSPC or HRI. All of the observing time in the pointed phase is made available to guest investigators through an international, competitive peer review.
The XRT telescope and the PSPC were developed by MPE in Garching, Germany, in collaboration with Carl Zeiss Company; the HRI detectors were developed by SAO in the United States.
In addition to Leicester, the other institutions in the United Kingdom that had a major role were the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Mullard Space Science Laboratory of University College London, the University of Birmingham, and the Imperial College of Science and Technology London.
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The Investigator Program. There are no restrictions regarding the amount of ROSAT observing time guest investigators may have, the percentage of observing time spent on long versus short investigations, or the number of targets requested in GO proposals.16 Proposals submitted to each of the three agencies (BMFT, NASA, and PPARC)17 are evaluated independently by the respective national proposal evaluation committees. The available observing time is shared in the ratio 50:38:12 among NASA, BMFT, and PPARC. Each agency approves enough proposals to cover about 150 percent of its nominally available national observing time. All proposals approved by each agency are grouped into one of four categories: two-sevenths for programs with highest priority, two-sevenths for programs with medium priority, three-sevenths for programs with low priority, and those that are not approved.
The three participating agencies (BMFT, NASA, and PPARC) independently define their national proposal lists. The IUC's task is to combine the three national programs into the ROSAT observing program. This observing program should be devoid of unnecessary duplication among nationally defined observing programs; redundant proposals are removed so that the national observing programs are changed as little as possible. To select between competing proposals, the IUC uses the priority and observing time allocated by national selection committees. The IUC recommends a final ROSAT observing program to BMFT and reports back to the national committees about any changes to individual national observing programs. As a result, a nationally approved proposal may be rejected on the international level because of a competing proposal. BMFT approves the ROSAT observing program on the basis of IUC recommendations.18
On the whole, cooperation on ROSAT has worked very well. Many hundreds of guest investigators have used the telescope during more than 7 years of operation. When problems have occurred (e.g., failure of several gyros), they have been solved through joint efforts.
Excellent communication has been central to ROSAT's success. There were, of course, the usual project reviews to monitor progress during the hardware phase. Numerous project meetings dealt with specific questions as well. This ensured constant communication among the engineers, scientists, and managers. At a higher level, there were the national ROSAT committees (for Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom) and the IUC (eight members). The national and international users committees met several times before launch, and after launch they met at each AO cycle (eight times thus far). In addition, data management, sharing, and analysis, which are done in a distributed but concerted fashion (MPE, GSFC, University of Leicester [UL] with RAL), have been optimal, resulting in an excellent data service for a wide community. There was ample lead time: the data analysis effort at MPE started 8 years before launch; in the United States, it began 4 years before launch and in the United Kingdom about 6 years before launch.
ROSAT has been a highly successful mission that has made fundamental discoveries and many important observations. It provided the United States (and the world) with the only high-resolution (a few arc seconds) x-ray imaging observatory since the demise of the Einstein Observatory (1981) and until AXAF (1998). As an example of international cooperation, it must be regarded as a great success.
Pointed observation data are subject to proprietary data rights for a period of 1 year after the data have been made available to the PI.
With the reorganization of U.K. research councils in April 1994, PPARC took over SERC's responsibilities for funding ROSAT in the United Kingdom.
The ROSAT observing time is significantly oversubscribed (by a factor or four to seven). The most important criterion for assessment by national evaluation committees is the scientific merit of the proposed research. However, the feasibility or the observations, as well as observational constraints that may overburden the ROSAT system, also figure in the selection.
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Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory is the most comprehensive space mission ever devoted to the study of the Sun and the heliosphere. From the vantage point of a halo orbit around the first Lagrangian point, L1, SOHO's 12 scientific instruments observe and measure structures and processes that occur inside as well as outside the Sun and reach well beyond the Earth's orbit into the heliosphere. The two extremes of this data, the deep core and the outermost layers of the convection zone, are unobtainable except from space.
The SOHO mission involves international cooperation among ESA, European national authorities, and NASA. ESA took the lead in the cooperation between the two large space agencies by procuring the spacecraft (including integration of the 12 instruments and environmental testing of the satellite) from European industry. Instruments were built under the leadership of PIs,19 nine of them funded by European national entities and three by NASA.20
EUV and UV imagers and spectrographs have yielded the first comprehensive view of the outer solar atmosphere and corona. For the first time, the temperature, density, and velocity evolution of the solar atmosphere can be observed from the photosphere out through the far corona. Observations are continuous. Although SOHO is a single mission, experiments on board SOHO can be divided, according to their area of research, into three main groups: helioseismology instruments, solar corona instruments, and solar wind in situ instruments. The helioseismology instruments provide high-precision and high-accuracy measurements of solar oscillations. The solar corona instruments produce the data necessary to study dynamic phenomena in the upper solar atmosphere. The solar wind in situ instruments measure the composition of the solar wind and energetic particles.
NASA supplied the SOHO launch vehicle (an Atlas-2AS) and provides ongoing mission operations including communications with the satellite via the Deep Space Network (DSN). Overall responsibility for the mission remains with ESA. After its launch on December 2, 1995, SOHO reached its location near Lagrangian point L1, 1.5 × 106 km from Earth and was injected into the halo orbit on February 14, 1996.
Historical Background
Although the SOHO mission is a cooperative effort between European agencies and NASA, its origins at the agency level were in Europe. However, because of the range of well-developed scientific cooperation between the space communities on both sides of the Atlantic, the scientific parenthood was clearly shared.
SOHO was proposed 13 years before its actual launch and, less than 3 years after being proposed, had become part of an ESA Horizon 2000 cornerstone. The foundations of SOHO were laid in earlier studies, namely those of GRIST (Grazing Incidence Solar Telescope) and DISCO (Dual Spectral Irradiance and Solar Constant Orbiter). It is the combined capabilities and objectives of both of these project proposals that constitutes the core of the SOHO mission.
The GRIST proposal and Phase A study foresaw a grazing incidence telescope (feeding several focal-plane instruments) to be mounted on the Instrument Pointing System (IPS) and flown as part of a Spacelab payload. One of the merits of GRIST was that the wavelength range accessible through grazing incidence optics is particularly powerful for spectroscopic diagnostics of the hot outer solar atmosphere. Spectroscopy in this domain had long been neglected on major solar satellites, partly because of experimental difficulties.
In July 1980 in response to an ESA call for mission proposals, a group of French and Belgian scientists proposed a mission, DISCO, dedicated to the study of spectral irradiance and the solar constant. This was considered an important, broad objective, in part because of the possible climatic effect of a long-term variation in
For the purposes of this report, a PI conceives of an investigation, is responsible for carrying it out and reporting on the results, and is responsible for the scientific success of the mission investigation.
The 12 international PI consortia involved 39 institutes from 15 countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.
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solar irradiance. At almost the same time, in the austral summer of 1979-1980, a group of French and American physicists observed the Sun continuously from Antarctica between December 31, 1979, and January 5, 1980. They succeeded in measuring global velocity oscillations of the Sun with an unprecedented signal-to-noise ratio. These historic observations led to the decision to include helioseismology velocity observations on board DISCO.
In addition, the potential for helioseismology of solar brightness oscillations, as evidenced by the high-quality of the solar constant data obtained by the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM), offered a unique asset to that mission, which could for the first time attempt to detect the Sun's global oscillation modes and shed new light on the intriguing solar neutrino deficit issue. An instrument measuring brightness oscillations would therefore add a substantial helioseismology assessment capability to the radiance and irradiance instruments. Accordingly, DISCO's model payload was extended to contain a set of photometers and absolute radiometers to perform measurements of the total and spectral irradiance in selected bands and detect solar oscillations in visible light.
An assessment study for SOHO was approved by ESA in December 1982. To create a larger scientific base for an eventual project, the Solar System Working Group recommended that a particle payload segment be included in the model payload. During the initial study phase, it became clear that SOHO should be a multidisciplinary mission, which implied the following: (1) helioseismology should be added to the set of spectroscopic solar telescopes forming the original payload; (2) SOHO should be placed in a halo orbit around L1 in order to be compatible with the helioseismological objectives; and (3) the particles-and-fields instruments should be devoted to solar wind composition measurements, the study of solar energetic particles, and the investigation of waves in the interplanetary medium.
The studies of DISCO and SOHO coincided with cancellation by NASA of its probe in the International Solar Polar Mission (ISPM) and its aftermath. This created tension between the space physics communities in Europe and the United States and explains why DISCO and SOHO were studied as purely European missions in their assessment phases. Despite inter-agency tension, the scientific communities on opposite sides of the Atlantic continued to cooperate in studying missions whose objectives were quite similar. At a regular ESA-NASA consultation meeting in June 1983, it was agreed that an integrated view should be taken of the large number of missions under study in the United States, Europe, and Japan in the area of solar-terrestrial physics. NASA and ESA therefore organized a preparatory meeting in September 1983, to which the Japanese Institute for Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) was invited.
After extensive discussion and a rather painful rationalization process, the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) program was formulated. It embodied a reduced version of NASA's previous program, Origins of Plasmas in the Earth's Neighborhood (OPEN), consisting of four spacecraft: Wind, which measured the solar wind and space plasma properties near Langrangian point L1; Equator and Polar in near-Earth orbits; and Geotail. New add-ons to the ISTP were Cluster and SOHO. In the preparatory meeting it was argued that SOHO and Cluster should be flown together. Both were addressing the same physical structures and processes by remotely sensing the coronal plasma through in situ measurements of the solar wind and in situ investigations in three dimensions of the magnetospheric plasma.
SOHO As Part of Horizon 2000. Formulation of the ESA science long-term program, later known as Horizon 2000, was a substantial community effort. It was guided and finally produced by a survey committee composed of senior European space scientists, including the ESA Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC).
At the final meeting of the survey committee in May 1984 in Venice, Italy, only three cornerstones were originally foreseen. It was therefore a surprise when a fourth, consisting of the SOHO and Cluster missions, was introduced by the chairman of the Solar System Working Group. Inclusion of this cornerstone, however, balanced the Horizon 2000 program among the disciplines represented by active researchers at the time. This cornerstone was called the Solar-Terrestrial Science Program (STSP)21 to make it a distinct element of the much larger International Solar-Terrestrial Physics program.
Originally called the Solar-Terrestrial Physics Cornerstone.
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cooperative effort, work on the polar platform venture brought to fruition many successful U.S.-European activities on instrument and science teams and paved the way for a smaller joint activity on the three polar meteorological satellites: The METOP satellite from EUMETSAT will be coordinated with two National Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) satellites, which are managed by a joint Department of Defense-NOAA program in the United States. Many in the Earth sciences community hope that the cooperation can be continued, at least through an appropriate data policy that allows for data exchange and sharing of scientific research.
Cooperation on the polar platforms took mainly a top-down approach, initiated by the agencies. Although many scientists supported the venture, the concept did not have the benefit of good coordination between the scientific communities in the United States and Europe. These communities did not enjoy the same status in their preparation of the platforms and worked independently in each country. In Europe, scientists were used as consultants and were not a driving force in the system. This appears in the asymmetrical objectives of the two AOs.
On the European side, the objectives were as follows:
To determine the level of European interest in potential core instruments to be developed by ESA;
To provide priorities for European use of different instruments within the payload;
To identify AOs for instruments supported by ESA member states; and
To identify possible investigations in the various disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary investigations (selection of PIs).
On the U.S. side, the AO had the following objectives:
To identify scientific team members and leaders for facility or core instruments to be developed and funded by NASA;
To identify a set of interdisciplinary investigations;
To identify proposals for non-core instruments for further Phase B studies, which were ultimately to be confirmed for Phase C/D; and
To provide guidance for the development of the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).
Thus, the objectives of U.S. and European science differed, as noted in the dissimilar AO definitions; no joint research programs were proposed, and, at the scientific core of the program, the two communities diverged. This lack of coherence and organization between the two communities made it difficult to lobby decision makers when both the European agencies and NASA faced budget cuts and when financial difficulties arose in the polar platform venture. It was also difficult for NASA and ESA to agree on the necessary descoping of the platform; as a result, cooperation could not result in cost savings. In addition, Earth system science was a new interdisciplinary approach that some scientists took less seriously than traditional disciplines. The structure and hierarchy of the Earth system science program were less familiar, creating additional difficulties for scientists who were working through channels to seek support.78 Finally, there was no agreement on data sharing and distribution; each agency had its own data policy. This remains a point of contention between NASA and ESA.
It is interesting to note that the atmospheric, oceanographic, Earth science, and land subdisciplines or the Earth scientific communities on both sides of the Atlantic did not share the same attitude during this period. The atmospheric community was preparing the UARS mission discussed above, along with an analysis of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), and METEOSAT data. The oceanographic communities in the United States and France were preparing TOPEX-POSEIDON, discussed above; and the oceanographic European community with several U.S. universities took an interest in preparation of the European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS-1), leading between 1981 and 1983 to a modification of its orbit (a higher orbit better suited for mesoscale circulation measurements by TOPEX-POSEIDON) and of its payload (inclusion of a Ku [12 to 18 GHz] radar altimeter and a precise positioning system, still complementing TOPEX-POSEIDON). Nothing equivalent occurred in the land science communities, which had no specific joint missions being prepared on the European side.
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However, a substantial data exchange and agreement took place among ESA, NASA, and NOAA on the ERS-1. In addition, there was an MOU with NASA to receive data at the Fairbanks ground station; an MOU with NOAA for delivery of ERS-1 Low Bit Rate Fast Delivery products to NOAA for forecasting purposes; and collaboration between the United States and Europe on calibration and validation of ERS-1 instruments and data.79
The history and circumstances leading up to the failure of cooperation on NASA-ESA polar platforms involved many perspectives and interests. There is no simple answer as to why the cooperation unraveled; myriad factors and influences contributed to the unsuccessful result. The beginnings of the polar platforms and Earth Observing System had its roots in the large Space Station program. In promoting the Space Station, the United States attempted to link the polar platforms and Earth observation in general, through a so-called intergovernmental agreement. This top-down approach assumed serviceable platforms for scientific and operational uses and a unified Earth observation data policy discussed under EO-ICWG and CEOS. Moreover, the programmatic decision to use large polar platforms introduced a new, unaffordable approach for Earth observation programs.
Within the space community, scientists supported this approach, not always for scientific reasons, but because they initially were given a platform on a "take-it-or-leave-it" basis. Once work on the program began, the Earth science communities were not well coordinated and not accustomed to working together. There was an inadequate historical basis for joint space-based scientific research on both sides of the Atlantic, at least in land science. The scientific communities in Europe and the United States had different levels of preparation and involvement in defining the polar program. This imbalance created a dissymetry in the relationships among the program managers.
In addition, the conception of the program itself changed early on, as did the context in which the program was conceived. The aftermath of Challenger created uncertainty for all launches; preparation for other missions in ocean and atmospheric sciences led to a variety of motivations among scientific users, as well as a difference in levels of preparation. The fact that the mission's objectives were not focused on a well-defined goal made scientific users unwilling to lobby for it. Furthermore, both Europe and NASA faced budget cuts, had (and still have) difficulties preserving their respective programs, and had to descope them.
In the end, the cooperative effort failed because the polar platform program was not objective driven and because the larger Space Station program from which it had emerged attempted to impose rules on Earth observations that had nothing to do with the International Space Station. Moreover, the original cooperative plan, which was to include not only the Earth science communities with NASA and ESA but also the operational segment with NOAA and EUMETSAT, may have been too ambitious for a first-time NASA-ESA Earth observing activity. The final failure was the result of a small step (the exchange of two instruments), but the initial step taken was far too grand; there was never a clear agreement about objectives and approach.
Lessons Learned
Although there is only a limited range of truly international scientific missions in Earth observation, those that have been developed have been quite successful. For instance, UARS and TOPEX-POSEIDON returned data and information beyond all expectations of the original team of mission planners and designers. The satellites were launched successfully, operated as expected, and provided highly reliable data and new insights into atmospheric processes and ocean dynamics. These achievements came at a significantly reduced cost to each participating country.
For these Earth science missions, data have been successfully distributed to a large number of users and investigators in many countries and across various disciplines. For instance, TOPEX-POSEIDON data have been
Memorandum of Understanding Between the United States National Aeronauties and Space Administration and the European Space Agency Concerning the Acquisition of ERS-1 SAR Data at Fairbanks, January 14, 1986.
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used by several international oceanographic and meteorological programs (e.g., WOCE and TOGA) to obtain significant new insight into ocean dynamics and climatic effects. UARS employed a Central Data Facility where data in all forms (from raw downlink to sophisticated mapped products, plus information to facilitate its use) were available on-line to investigators around the world, following the 1-year proprietary period.
Even though these bilateral and trilateral missions have been largely successful, there has been no formal cooperation between NASA and ESA on an Earth observation mission. The only cooperative activities are between NASA and one nation (e.g., France for TOPEX-POSEIDON) or several (e.g., the United Kingdom and France for UARS). Furthermore, within the Earth sciences, there has not been a cooperative land science mission between either NASA and ESA or NASA and a European country.80 The only cooperation in this domain has been restricted to data exchange, calibration and validation, sharing of receiving stations, or the opportunity to place European instruments on board the Space Shuttle.
Clearly Defined Mission, Significant Responsibilities on Both Sides, Clean Interfaces
The scientific value of missions has been significantly enhanced when scientists from several countries pooled their knowledge and shared their techniques. This applies equally to engineering know-how and to equipment. For instance, in TOPEX-POSEIDON, U.S. and French scientists and engineers shared significant contributions in oceanography, geodesy, altimetry, orbit calculation, and spacecraft engineering. What made this possible in practice and not just in theory was that there were relatively clean boundaries and interfaces in mission design and engineering, and each side made a significant contribution: They needed each other.
On UARS, Europe contributed instruments using techniques not readily available in the United States (e.g., pressure modulation, radiometry for composition measurements, solid-state interferometers for wind sensing); therefore, even though the contribution was not large, it was important, and the interface was clean.
Joint and Early Mission Planning
If an international mission is designed at the outset with the participation of scientists from cooperating countries, the mission has a stronger raison d'être. Experimenters from participating countries competitively bring their own know-how to the program; therefore, the mission is richer in concept than it would be without them. Also, if the experiments chosen complement each other in their quest to achieve the same objectives, the mission is more robust than it would be otherwise. In other words, a cooperative mission in which there is consensus on scientific objectives among partners and experiments that complement these objectives has a better chance of withstanding potential pitfalls than it would otherwise.
Scientists from both sides of the Atlantic must be involved in defining the concept of the mission from the beginning; mission design clearly benefits from these combined talents, but more importantly, a collective buy-in occurs. This happened in the case of UARS, whose design proved optimum to address questions and opposing hypotheses about the stratospheric sciences that were hotly debated at the time.
In TOPEX-POSEIDON there was a lengthy planning process and MOU development. This established a firm foundation for cooperation. In addition, TOPEX-POSEIDON scientists helped their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic keep the mission planning and implementation process moving forward, even when the political or funding situation deteriorated. Without cooperation between French and U.S. scientists, the TOPEX-POSEIDON mission would never have been approved by NASA or CNES. The support of French scientists was needed for NASA acceptance, and it appears that the scientific pressure applied by U.S. scientists helped persuade CNES to
However, under the new NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder Program, which requires launch within 4 years of project initiation, one or the first two selections may involve U.S.-European cooperation between NASA and DARA on the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). Final discussions are under way between the United States and Germany and could involve the purchase of a launch vehicle by Germany.
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support the mission. This was not the case in the polar platform venture, which resulted in failure of the cooperation when less funding became available.
Cost Reduction
Cost sharing helped reduce the mission cost to each individual country, as noted in the TOPEX-POSEIDON example. The international cost contribution to UARS was smaller, consisting of payload instruments worth perhaps $50 million; but the technology contribution, as mentioned, reflected an importance beyond its total monetary value.
On the negative side, specific problems have been associated with mission financial support despite the overall success of missions. Because UARS was the first international Earth science mission, it was also a major learning exercise for the project teams and agencies. One of the difficulties arose when a French principal investigator, whose instrument was accepted for the UARS mission, could not get support to develop and construct the instrument in France. It was finally built by Canada with a Canadian PI. There were also said to have been difficulties for a British PI on UARS in delivering his instrument and obtaining travel support to attend science steering group meetings in the United States. Despite these problems, the UARS mission is a major success story in internationalizing Earth science missions from space.
Involvement in a Broader International Agenda
Earth observation missions provide data to more than one discipline or research project. Unlike UARS, where data were restricted to principal investigators for 1 year, TOPEX-POSEIDON data were limited only to a 6-month validation period. Moreover, data sharing for the TOPEX-POSEIDON mission was ensured not only by the MOU and other agreements, but also by the fact that it had become a vital part of an international research effort to explore ocean circulation and its interaction with the atmosphere. The mission was timed to coincide with and complement a number of international oceanographic and meteorological programs, including WOCE and TOGA, both of which are sponsored by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). TOPEX-POSEIDON was more than a contribution to WOCE, because WOCE was designed by taking TOPEX-POSEIDON into account. The relationship of TOPEX-POSEIDON to international research programs was, therefore, conceived beforehand.
For UARS, the relationship to international research programs was based on actual observation. UARS had been designed earlier, before Challenger and before the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer in 1985. However, UARS contributed directly to international concerns that were addressing changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere, including ozone depletion due to NOx and CFCs. For example, the Montreal Protocol of 1987 called for international ozone assessments to be done on a periodic basis under the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Program. UARS was critical in verifying the chemistry and dynamics of stratospheric ozone reduction by actually measuring molecules such as ClO. In addition, UARS played a vital role in the development of an international project, Stratospheric Processes and Their Role in Climate, which is now a component of the WCRP.
Data Sharing
The concept of creating a central data handling facility for a given scientific mission so that the data from all instruments are available to all investigators on the mission provides an added benefit of making correlative data sets available to individual investigators. In the case of UARS, this pioneering concept in an Earth science mission helped investigators to compare their measurements with other related parameters in the stratosphere measured by other instruments on UARS and thereby provided excellent diagnostic capability to each of the investigators. In addition, when a central data handling facility is set up from which each participating scientist, regardless of nationality, can reach into and acquire the data of everyone else, common trust is built up faster and the scientific results are likely to be of higher quality. Although a central data facility was one way to collect and distribute
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mission data in the pre-workstation era, advances in computer technology and networks have made it easier for multiple, decentralized centers to link disparate data sets in a seamless fashion.
In fact, TOPEX-POSEIDON, which ensured data sharing in the original MOU and other agreements, took advantage of this advanced technology. TOPEX-POSEIDON data are processed, distributed, and archived by JPL's Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PODAAC) and by the French Space Agency (CNES) Archiving, Validation and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic (AVISO) Data Center in Toulouse, France. At both centers, data are readily requested via the Internet and electronic mail. Data are provided to users primarily in CD-ROM format or by electronic file transfer. Moreover, JPL, which manages the TOPEX-POSEIDON project and operates the satellite, hosts World Wide Web pages with browse files of data and images, access to near-real-time data, and other resources such as tutorials, descriptions of images, examples of oceanographic applications, and a list of investigators. The existence of two processing centers—one in France and one in the United States—with shared responsibilities, stimulated cross-fertilization and was of benefit to the scientific community. The principal investigators for TOPEX-POSEIDON also decided to give up any "proprietary access period" to the data, on the grounds that they had already a significant advantage over general users because of their depth of knowledge of the system and because they calibrated and validated the data without imposing a period of restricted access.
It is relatively easy to implement data exchange agreements for fully dedicated scientific missions with a relatively sharp focus, where the data are used primarily by the scientific community. On the other hand, multiuser, multipurpose missions that have different communities of users with different goals, from science to commercial applications, raise almost insurmountable barriers to developing data exchange agreements and policies. Therefore, it is important that agreement on the purpose of the mission and data policy be achieved very early in the process of cooperation.
To induce scientists or engineers to share their data and technology with other countries, there must be a two-way flow with a clear advantage to all sides. In the case of TOPEX-POSEIDON, each side benefited from the knowledge of altimetry, geology, oceanography, and space technology that the other side provided. However, the original agreements (or MOUs) must clearly spell out how mission data are to be shared and specifically what calibration information is to be provided.
The distribution and cost of data to participants and other users must be agreed on at initiation of the project. For most missions, agreements specify how long PIs have preferential access before the data are released to the public. Financial implications may arise if the data must be obtained through commercial channels. When scientific research has potential applications with commercial and/or industrial interests or when national interests are the driving forces, cooperation may turn into competition. These issues should be clearly addressed during the preparation phase of the mission to avoid "poisoning" the scientific cooperation. It is essential that the role and responsibilities of each partner be clearly identified as early as possible.
International cooperation in analyzing data or organizing field experiments (ground segment) has been much better than the cooperation in defining, designing, and sharing responsibilities for a space mission (space segment). International programs for analyzing the data (e.g., International Geosphere-Biosphere Program [IGBP] and the WCRP) and for organizing field experiments (e.g., WOCE, Hydrological and Atmospheric Pilot Experiment in the Sahel [HAPEX], Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study [BOREAS]) exist and have proven highly efficient.
Technology Sharing
There were problems with using each other's data due to lack of calibration information from the other side, particularly for altimeter calibration data on TOPEX-POSEIDON. Whether intentional or accidental, this deficiency might not have occurred if the original agreements had more clearly spelled out data were to be shared, and specifically what calibration information was to be provided. Again on TOPEX-POSEIDON, there was considerable reluctance among decision-making NASA officials to share altimeter-related technology for both competitive and security reasons, and similar reluctance on the part of the French to explain details of the French system. There were no corresponding problems on UARS where an excellent spirit of cooperation was achieved throughout.
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Lack of Historical Foundation
Finally, there is an implicit lesson in what is missing from our base of international experience; namely, there have been no Earth science missions jointly between ESA and NASA and no joint land missions between NASA and a European country. This area is marked by unsuccessful attempts at cooperation. Most recently, NASA was to provide an Earth radiation budget instrument to ESA's ENVISAT mission, and ESA was to provide a passive microwave instrument for flight on NASA's EOS-PM1 spacecraft. Each canceled its contribution; in both cases, cancellation proved troublesome for the other side and was done with little or no consultation or warning. This last act ended the planned cooperation between ESA and NASA in Earth science.
The reasons for the lack of success appear to be that cooperation in Earth science (as opposed to Earth observation) between NASA and ESA is relatively recent, and the undercurrent of competitive forces still influences Earth observation programs at these agencies. The lack of adequate data exchange agreements between NASA and ESA for their major Earth science missions (e.g., EOS, ENVISAT) reflect this continuing tension. It should be noted, however, that scientific cooperation between the United States and Europe in Earth sciences has increased significantly in the past 15 years, thanks to the IGBP and WCRP and other similar programs.
Microgravity Research And Life Sciences
For microgravity research and life sciences, the future of experimentation in space for the next 20 years depends largely on the International Space Station as the laboratory in space. As is well known, Space Station is a cooperative effort among Canada, Japan, the western European community, Russia, and the United States. Hence, to a great extent, the efficacy of scientific investigations on Space Station depends on the efficacy of international cooperation. One branch of this international cooperation is, of course, efforts between the western European community and the United States.
Within this context, from the various types of missions flown thus far, the International Microgravity Laboratory (IML) missions IML-1 and IML-2 were chosen to represent the nature of international cooperation in microgravity research and life sciences. These missions exhibited characteristics of cooperative endeavors between NASA and the European agencies on Space Station and can be thought of as precursor missions for the International Space Station. IML-1 and IML-2 were particularly distinctive with respect to the variety and intensity of cooperation between Europe and the United States. The nature of the cooperation included sharing of experimental facilities as well as sharing of scientific knowledge. Also, even though a majority of the experimental facilities were provided by Canada, Japan, and western Europe, both experimental facility management and mission management were provided by the United States. Because of the particular characteristics of IML-1 and IML-2, an analysis of the experience and outcome associated with them should provide guidance for the conduct of international cooperation of the space laboratory of the future, the International Space Station.
International Microgravity Laboratory
IML-1 and IML-2 were missions in which foreign partners contributed facilities for use in life sciences or microgravity research experiments in exchange for an opportunity to place the facility aboard the Shuttle to carry out experiments in space.81 The missions involved the CNES, the 14-nation ESA, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), DARA, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), and NASA.
The manifest for IML-1 was composed of 14 experimental facilities equally divided between life sciences and microgravity research. There was an additional facility for measurement of acceleration levels. The latter facility and six of the experimental facilities were provided by NASA. ESA, DARA, and NASDA each provided two experimental facilities; CNES and CSA each provided one facility. The manifest structure and diversity in
Microgravity and life sciences research conducted in the space environment makes use of large facilities, such as glove boxes and furnaces, which investigators share to conduct experiments.
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nationality of facilities for IML-2 was similar to IML-1: There were eight experimental facilities in life sciences and seven in microgravity research; however, most of the actual experimental facilities for IML-2 were new.
Historical Background
The initial planning meeting for IML-1 was held in July 1983. This was followed by the formation of a science working group in October 1983. The payload complement was finalized in December 1984. In 1986 Challenger caused a prolonged delay, within which the launch date was rescheduled nine times. The investigator working group began meeting in January 1987 and met frequently thereafter. IML-1 was ultimately launched on an 8-day mission on January 22, 1992.
Like IML-1, IML-2 had its inception in 1983 when NASA began planning the IML Spacelab missions. The preliminary payload for IML-2 was sketched out in January 1989. The payload configuration was established in October 1989. This was followed by the first meeting of the investigator working group in May 1990. Except for personnel changes, the IML-2 mission management organization was similar to IML-1. IML-2 was launched on July 8, 1994, and landed on July 23, 1994.
The selection of facilities to be included in IML-1 was made by NASA. Each facility was developed and provided, flight-ready, by the space agency that proposed and sponsored it. On the other hand, each space agency was individually responsible for the selection of experiments for a given facility. The responsible space agency covered the costs of the experiments it selected, regardless of the origin of the facility involved. Each major facility had its own project manager who helped coordinate the activities of individual experimenters. NASA provided overall coordination of the mission with a program scientist and program manager at its headquarters, as well as a mission manager and mission scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
The life sciences facilities involved 29 separate experiments. Investigations were conducted in human physiology, space biology, radiation biology, bioprocessing, plant physiology, and human adaptation to low gravity. Three of the facilities were provided by NASA and had only U.S. principal investigators. Facilities provided by DARA and NASDA each had single experiments, with PIs from the country of origin. The facility provided by CSA was used for six experiments, all with Canadian PIs. Only one life sciences facility, the Biorack provided by ESA, was international in scope. PIs from eight separate European countries and the United States conducted 17 experiments.
Thirteen separate experiments were performed in the microgravity research facilities. The areas targeted were casting and solidification technology, solution crystal growth, vapor crystal growth, protein crystal growth, organic crystal growth, and critical point phenomena. The three facilities provided by NASA were used solely by U.S. PIs. The facilities provided by CNES and NASDA were used for single experiments with PIs from the country of origin. Two facilities, the Cryostat provided by DARA and the Critical Point Facility provided by ESA, had an international flavor. In Cryostat, two PIs were from Germany and one was from the United States; the Critical Point Facility included two PIs from France, one from the Netherlands, and one from the United States.
For specific experiments in both the life sciences and microgravity research, additional international cooperation occurred in several instances. In these cases, the nationality of the coinvestigator(s) differed from the nationality of the PI, and the data collected were shared by members of the investigative team. Altogether there were 40 PIs from 11 countries. If coinvestigators are taken into account, 220 scientists from 12 countries participated in IML-1. The countries represented were Switzerland, the United States, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Japan, Canada, and Australia.
IML-2 continued the concept of the contribution of facilities by foreign partners for a NASA-managed Spacelab mission in exchange for the opportunity to carry out experiments in low Earth orbit. The participating agencies were identical to those that took part in IML-1. Payload selection was done by NASA, as earlier. Participating agencies were again responsible for the costs of a flight-ready facility. They were also responsible
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for the selection of their national experiments and the costs of supporting the experiments selected. However, the lineup of facilities was considerably different from that of IML-1. Only three experimental facilities from IML-1 were reflown on IML-2: the Biorack and Critical Point Facility provided by ESA, and the Biostack provided by DARA. The acceleration measurement facility provided by NASA on IML-1 was also reflown.
Including Biorack and Biostack, a total of eight life sciences facilities were selected for IML-2. Thirty-five separate experiments were conducted in the general areas of space biology, human physiology, and radiation biology. NASDA-provided three facilities and DARA-provided two, including Biostack. ESA, CSA, and NASA each provided one facility. In the latter two cases, PIs were of the same national origin as the facility itself. This was also true for one of the facilities provided by NASDA and one provided by DARA. In somewhat similar fashion, the ESA-provided Biorack had PIs only from ESA member nations; in this case, PIs from six European countries conducted experiments. Hence, PIs whose origin was different from that of the facility were present on only three of these facilities. One U.S. PI and one Swiss PI utilized the DARA-provided Slow Rotating Centrifuge Microscope along with six German PIs. One U.S. PI cooperated with three Japanese PIs to conduct experiments with the Aquatic Animal Experiment Unit provided by Japan. The second NASDA-provided facility, the Thermoelectric Incubator, had a roster of one U.S. PI and two PIs from Japan.
For carrying out experiments in microgravity research, seven facilities were selected for IML-2. Thirty-eight experiments in the general areas of materials science, fluid sciences, and biotechnology were carried out. ESA- provided three facilities, including the Critical Point Facility mentioned previously. NASDA-provided two facilities; CNES and DARA each provided one. NASA did not provide any of the microgravity research facilities, but at least one U.S. PI was included in every facility. In the Electromagnetic Containerless Processing Facility provided by DARA, the experimental team consisted of four U.S. PIs and four German PIs. The Bubble, Drop and Particle Unit provided by ESA involved two U.S. PIs along with four European PIs from three ESA member countries. A second ESA-provided facility, the Advanced Protein Crystallization Unit, involved a U.S. PI cooperating with 10 European PIs from five ESA member countries. ESA's Critical Point Facility included one U.S. PI with three European PIs from three ESA member countries. One French PI and one U.S. PI participated in using the French-provided facility, Applied Research on Separation Methods Using Electrophoresis. Each of the NASDA-provided facilities, the Free Flow Electrophoresis Unit and the Large Isothermal Furnace, accommodated one U.S. PI along with two PIs from Japan.
Three additional facilities flown on IML-2 were dedicated to experiments and measurements for characterization of the microgravity environment and countermeasures. One facility, which had previously flown on IML-1, was provided by NASA. The other two were provided by DARA and NASDA. Four experiments were done. The PIs in each case represented the nationality of the facility-providing agency.
Because of multiple experiments by three PIs, 73 individuals carried out a total of 77 experiments on IML-2. As was true for IML-1, coinvestigators were associated with most of the PIs. Also, like IML-1, in several instances the nationality of the coinvestigators differed from that of the PI. Including coinvestigators, 198 scientists from 13 countries were involved in conducting experiments on IML-2. The countries represented were Switzerland, the United States, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Norway, Belgium, and Sweden.
For both IML-1 and IML-2, a range of experimental and programmatic success was experienced. Some PIs reported complete success, many reported significant success, and others reported relatively minor success or none. The reasons were similar to other areas of successful cooperation in space: clean interfaces, good communication between all parties, favorable cost-benefit ratios, and synergistic effects. Instances of less-than-complete success were often accompanied by situations in which the interfaces and communications were faulty and the scientists were not "in charge."
There are, also, some insights unique to IML, such as the amplification of cooperation through the development of "generic" equipment that different partners must use, although this amplification was not always free of
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problems. However, it is important to note that many of the same problems that existed, and still continue, on international missions in the life and microgravity sciences also occur on national missions. These problems tend to be magnified in any international undertaking, making them somewhat more complicated to resolve.
Lessons Learned
Benefits Should Clearly Outweigh Costs
One primary benefit was the distribution of costs for performing experiments in low Earth orbit. Both NASA and the European partners provided equipment and selected experiments for the IML missions, whereas NASA provided mission management and launches. Cooperation spread the cost of hardware over a wider base. Neither NASA nor the foreign partners could have provided such a wide spectrum of equipment from their own resources. For U.S. investigators this arrangement provided an opportunity to make use of equipment that would otherwise have not been available to them.
The international missions were an economic advantage to both the United States and the foreign partners. Each country was able to mount important experiments with less total cost to itself. European scientists were able to put experiments into space at a reduced cost, compared with development of their own launch vehicle. For the United States, the availability of "free" hardware in exchange for flight possibilities was an important economic consequence. For example, without this, the IML-2 mission would never have flown, since NASA was unable to provide the budget needed for any hardware development. Another economic benefit is that this collaborative approach to developing hardware has resulted in a larger stock of apparatus available for experiments on subsequent flights. Some of the pieces of hardware have already been used on other flights.
An important benefit of international cooperations is the synergism that develops between and among scientists, scientists and engineers, scientists and managers, and engineers and managers from different countries. A wider range of expertise was available for the generation of equipment concept, development, and implementation, as well as for improving the concept of experiments and experimental protocols. In many cases, the resulting experiments were better than they would have been if participants had been from only a single country. Furthermore, the missions promoted cooperation among scientists from different countries that have resulted in long-lasting scientific collaborations.
The international cooperation in these missions had a major synergistic effect on the science that could be performed. Neither U.S. nor European scientists could have accomplished nearly as many spaceflight experiments without this cooperation. The United States had the only vehicle capable of carrying these experiments into space but relatively limited amounts of equipment or budget to produce such equipment. The Europeans, on the other hand, had no access to space on their own because they had no launch vehicle, but they had both the funding and the interest to provide equipment suitable for these experiments in microgravity research and life sciences. Thus, by combining their efforts, a maximum amount of science was achieved. This lesson has clearly already been learned with regard to the Space Station.
Development of Generic Equipment
It was perceived that the development of multiuser (generic) hardware by a specific national entity would always be valuable to scientists from other nations, who might then be able to use the equipment for their own experiments. To a certain extent this has been true, and equipment proved to be truly generic. However, two problems have occurred. Generic hardware often imperfectly accommodated given experiments within the set of equipment for which the hardware was said to be designed. In addition, some scientists found that generic hardware was insufficient for their needs. In some cases, facilities were not generic in that the hardware was developed for a defined set of experiments. By the time additional international PIs were added, it was usually too late to effect any meaningful changes to the apparatus so as to accommodate other, diverse experiments.
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Given such experiences on the IML missions, PIs should be more closely involved in the definition of facilities and equipment. At present, facilities tend to be designed by committees that try to make the apparatus as multiuser as possible. Although this is a desirable goal, some of the equipment problems might be alleviated if PIs were involved earlier.
Hardware Failings and Communication
The two IML missions conducted 119 experiments. More than 400 scientists participated, including both principal investigators and coinvestigators from 15 countries. There were failures and mixtures of degrees of success, as well as major difficulties encountered by some PIs. In some cases the hardware failed to live up to expectations. Severe difficulties with some of the hardware was brought on in part by insufficient communication between the hardware development engineers and the PIs who were going to use the equipment. Often, hardware development had proceeded too far before international PIs came on board. In addition, there were cases in which communication difficulties between various players were exacerbated by the diversity of nationalities, different agendas of the international entities, and geographic separation of participants. Improvements in communication among engineers and scientists will be important for the Space Station. There is no excuse for flight equipment to be flown that has not been ground tested or does not work properly.
Resource Allocation
PIs also faced the difficulty of resource allocation, which is particularly important on relatively short Shuttle-based mission. It is even more demanding on international missions that may have conflicting agendas.
Because of the wide range of nations involved and an accompanying diversity in scientific priorities, there were myriad experiments on IML-1 and IML-2. In the planning of missions there was no great concern about the overbooking of resources, even though a large number of experiments were to take place. Many believed that the diversity would, in fact, lend itself to compatibility with resources. In particular, the inclusion of both microgravity research and life sciences experiments was thought to be a benefit; the life sciences experiments were expected to be crew intensive, whereas the microgravity research experiments were expected to be power intensive. This outlook proved to be too simplistic. The missions showed that an analysis of mission experiments and resource availability must be conducted down to the subdiscipline level.
The unavoidable conclusion is that on IML-1 and IML-2, the resources were seriously overbooked. This includes data downlinks, direct TV coverage of experiments, and crew time. Crew time was so heavily booked that when some of the crew were unable to perform for periods of time, there was not enough slack in the system to compensate. This problem was exacerbated by the interruptions of crew time for public relations or outreach teaching performances. As a result, in some investigations, critical data points were simply not collected, and the experiments were seriously compromised. The success of scientific experiments should not be jeopardized by the unexpected insertion of public affairs into the time line. Proper planning with the public affairs office will alleviate this issue.
Experience has shown that at times the crew's efficiency in space is lower than when they are on the ground, so it is better to fly fewer experiments and have them all succeed rather than fly too many that end up being incomplete.
Archiving and Accessing Data82
The IML missions contained a wide range of science, experiments, and experimenters from all over the world. Hence, results obtained are published in a variety of journals and conference proceedings. For IML-1 and IML-2, there is no single source summary of scientific results. One has to comb through a considerable number of sources
For more information about archiving, see Committee on Microgravity Research, Space Studies Board, NRC, Archiving Microgravity Flight Data and Samples, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1996.
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to learn the efficacy of the missions. Then too, many of the experiments may never be published, especially if they were not considered a scientific success by the PI. There is therefore a need for proceedings of international cooperation in microgravity research and life sciences. Moreover, in formulating international missions in microgravity research and life sciences, partners should reach agreements that articulate how the results are going to be disseminated and identify the obligations of all PIs to contribute to a single book on mission results. However, the format of such a publication should be such that the material would not preclude parallel publication in refereed journals.83 An example to be followed is that of the D-2 mission, which published a single volume containing information and basic findings from every experiment on the mission.84
Considering the potential for difficulties in managing these complex international missions, the management succeeded better than anyone could have expected. Some problems arose, and there were too many levels of management between the PI and the mission, but few concrete suggestions were made about ways to improve mission management. There were suggestions, however, about the need for better communication between the agencies. European scientists need to be better informed about NASA's requirements, rules, and procedures. Similarly, U.S. scientists need to understand that the administrative structure for spaceflight experiments is somewhat different in Europe. Improving these types of communication might make it easier for European scientists to adjust to some of NASA's requirements.
IML-1 "Quick Look," documentation dated April 6, 1992; IML-1 Brochure IML-1 payload confirmation documentation; correspondence from Dr. Robert Snyder, mission scientist for IML-1 and IML-2, dated May 13, 1996; IML-2 payload confirmation documentation, dated January 12, 1993.
Sahm, P.R., Keller, M.H., and Schiewe, B., eds., Proceedings of the Norderney Symposium on Scientific Results of the German Spacelab Mission D-2, March 14-16, 1994, Norderney, Germany, Wissenschaffliehe Projcktfuhrung D-2 Mission, Cologne, Germany, 1995.


text:
Torrential rain lashing Bhubaneswar for the past 48 hours paralysed life on Thursday. People were confined to their houses in the water-logged areas. Both train and bus passengers were stranded midway.
Relentless downpour in the forenoon and afternoon led to submergence stretches of arterial roads of the Capital city by storm water. Thousands of vehicles were found stranded bumper-to-bumper on the National Highway passing through the city. Traffic police personnel had to struggle to ease traffic snarls. Vehicles were stranded for an hour. Major traffic snarls were witnessed near the busy Acharya Vihar junction (road from Acharya Vihar to Vani Vihar).
Bhubaneswar received 140 mm rainfall between Wednesday morning and Thursday evening. Rainwater gushing from the upland areas inundated low-lying areas in the city. Some people who returned from offices in the afternoon were not able to reach their houses. Moreover, many were seen wading through waist-deep water in residential colonies.
Situation was precarious in Acharya Vihar near Science Park, Chindamaniswar, GGP Colony, and Jharpada.
There was no sign of relief in the evening hours. Well-marked low pressure over coastal Andhra Pradesh continued to have its impact.
Bhubaneswar railway station witnessed absolute chaotic situation with the East Coast Railway diverting 29 trains on alternative routes and cancelling three trains between Bhubaneswar and Palasa. Passengers waited for hours in the station with the train schedule going haywire.
"The down main line at Ichhapuram near Palasa on the Howrah-Chennai trunk route has been made functional (with restricted speed) after remaining suspended for train operations for more than 18 hours," ECoR said in a statement. The UP line remains waterlogged and a decision on running trains would be taken after the rains subside.
ECoR Chief Public Relation Officer J. P. Mishra said, "Special patrol teams have been engaged round the clock at sensitive locations like bridges and cuttings to keep a sharp look out for rising water levels or any other issue involving train safety."
Mr. Mishra said a large number of goods trains carrying coal to powerhouses would also be affected as priority would be given to running of express and passenger trains. Passengers waiting at Baramunda Bus Terminal in Bhubaneswar had a terrible time. Bus operators were uncertain about running buses as reports kept pouring in that some roads were submerged.

subset: commoncrawl